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For those who believed in the “sanctity of sport” or see it as a way to escape from the harsh realities of the “real world”, it hasn't been a good month. On February 4, Europol revealed that 380 soccer matches across Europe had been fixed, with 425 officials and players suspected of being involved.

Moroccan authorities have sentenced Western Saharan political prisoners to long jail sentences. The the prisoners had already spent two year in jail waiting for a trail. Amnesty International had called the trials flawed from the outset. Eight Saharawi were sentenced to life in jail for peacefully demonstrating for the people of Western Sahara to be given a vote of self-determination, as promised by the United Nations. A further four activists received 30 years, seven received 25 years and two got 20-year sentences.

British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto is seriously contemplating reopening its Bougainville copper and gold mine, Reuters reported on February 7.

20,000 people turned out to hear the John Butler Trio, Missy Higgins and Bob Brown among others in a concert and rally and march for the Kimberley in Fremantle on February 24, 2013. It was a massive outpouring of community opposition to the Barnett government's blatant attempts to steal Aboriginal land, ride roughshod over local community opposition to the project and to trash the environmental qualities of the area around James Price Point.

The 10,000 nurses and midwives involved in industrial action across Western Australia have been threatened with disciplinary action and deregistration by the state’s director general if they go ahead with a planned 24-hour strike on February 25. The industrial dispute, which for the first time in 12 years has seen the closure of beds across the state’s public hospitals, is set to intensify in the coming week as the state government continues to ignore nurses’ demands on wages and conditions.